


Fake My Death and Once be Found

by ellacj



Series: 52 Weeks of Swan Queen [23]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Post-Apocalypse, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 16:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4145406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I wanna leave this town, fake my death and never be found."</p><p>-Brandi Carlile</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fake My Death and Once be Found

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still a week behind. Bear with me, kids, I've got plans for week 24 and should hopefully have it up by Thursday.

After a while, you learn not to look as you walk through the ruins. The only pieces left behind of a kingdom once so great, once so loved, once so feared. The surrounding villages have all crumbled to dust right now, but parts of the castle still stand tall and proud, untouched by time’s erosion of its brothers.

Emma comes here a lot more now than she did when it was intact. Her visits with the queen were never meant to be more than a casual, physical agreement, but when she got word of the queen’s death she fled the kingdom, leaving her emotions behind.

They were still here when she came back. The queen’s tomb stands proudly among the rubble, a glass case with intricately woven patterns of gold and silver encasing it. It sits there, untouched and unharmed, as though in protest of the damage all around it.

Emma sits down on a large piece of stone beside the tomb. “Hey, Regina,” she whispers. “It’s me. I’m back. I guess you were right, I can’t stay away.” She chuckles hollowly. “I don’t know why I keep coming here. I guess it’s just… I don’t know. I miss you?” It comes out as more of a question, and somehow, it gets an answer.

“I miss you too.” The voice comes from behind her, and it’s so familiar that Emma’s heart wrenches as she turns around. “Regina?”

The woman standing behind her has those same eyes Emma first noticed three years ago, only her hair is loose and at her shoulders, and her cheeks are far more hollow than Emma remembers. “I miss you too,” Regina says.

“How the hell-” Emma whips her head back around, and, sure enough, Queen Regina is still and peaceful in her final resting place.

“Guard with a cloaking spell,” Regina explains simply, waving a hand to reveal the true victim, a man proudly dressed in black armor and feathers. “I had to escape. And I couldn’t have anyone following me.”

Emma frowns. “Why?”

Regina sighs heavily. “I knew about all of this.” She gestures to the area around them. “I was warned by someone very powerful. ‘The siege will come and destroy all the land, save the sparkling ocean and burning white sand’.”

“So you faked your death.”

“I went to the shore. I would have come back for you, but I thought…”

Emma sighs, running both hands through her hair. “You thought I died in the attack. But I don’t understand, why couldn’t you just take me with you in the first place?”

“I… I was scared. Of what I was feeling.” Regina’s eyes are wide, hands trembling ever so slightly. “I’ve always believed that love was weakness. And if I was to survive, I couldn’t be weak at all.”

“Love isn’t weakness, Regina.” Emma reaches forward and clasps Regina’s hand in hers, squeezing tightly and bringing it to her lips for a soft kiss. “It’s strength.”

“I know that now. I just hope it isn’t too late to tell you that-”

Emma cuts her off with a kiss, all lips and teeth and tongue because _they’re not dead_. And Emma’s mind is racing with questions and answers, her heart threatening to jump out of her chest, and none of it matters when Regina’s hands are back on her waist where they belong. “I love you too,” Emma whispers through heavy breaths when finally they break, heads tilted forward just enough that their foreheads rest against each other.

“So now what?”

Emma shrugs. “I’ve heard the shore is pretty nice right about now.”

Regina smiles, threading her fingers through Emma’s as they stand. “It’s gorgeous. You’ll love it.”

“Oh, one thing before we go.” Emma carefully lifts a large stone from the ground, turning toward the tomb of the soldier. And, without hesitation, she throws the rock hard enough that it shatters the glass, leaving only the weaving of the gold and silver encasing the guard. “No one should be immune to the decay of this place. Let’s go.”

And they do, embarking on a six-day journey on foot to the place where the ocean meets the land. It’s a long way, no doubt, but they’ve got a lot of catching up to do. And, when Regina’s hand is in Emma’s and the sun is shining so brightly overhead, Emma can’t possibly imagine a better way to live out the rest of her days. She doesn’t glance back at the ruins. Time has its own version of forever.

This is theirs.


End file.
